CFP: [Victorian] Geopolitical Ecofeminisms

1st Annual Graduate Conference of the American Studies and VictorianStudies AssociationsBinghamton UniversityBinghamton, New York November 7-8, 2008Keynote Speaker: Leonard Tennenhouse, Brown University

Panel Topic:Transatlantic Geopolitical Ecofeminisms

In the 19th century both America and Europe were nations on the brink ofindustrial, political and economic progress. Frontier settlement wasexpanding and America was becoming a unified nation. Many writers from the19th century onward, however, explore and reveal the hidden deceptions thatlie within the myth of a unified nation. This panel seeks papers thatexplore these myths from a contemporary ecofeminist perspective, aperspective that focuses primarily on Europe and/or America as apatriarchal regime that has historically constituted women and nature asinherently inferior and passive.Papers dealing with themes of land settlement and wilderness destruction;medicalization and hysteria of women; transatlantic gender constructions;the role of science and experimentation on the ecos and/or women are ofparticular interest. How are these themes discussed in Transatlantictexts? What similarities/differences existed between American and Europeanwritings concerning gender, geopolitics, and science? Is there aTransatlantic conversation concerning these issues between European andAmerican authors during the 19th century? This panel invites paperproposals that address these questions, or any other aspects that embodygeopolitical ecofeminism.

Please submit abstracts between 250-500 words, no later than August 15,2008 to Christine Battista: chrissybattista_at_gmail.com